A contact center routes a contact to at least one queue. A queue has an absolutely ordered list of contact center resources. The ordering of the list of resources is based on one or more resource characteristic, such as skill of the resources, size of the resources, or availability of the resources. As the contacts are received into the queue, the contact center routes the contact based on the ordering of the list of resources. For example, a contact that is placed into a skill queue may be routed to the most skilled resource. Selection is based on one or more resource characteristic.